Who Saves the Hero by Kudara

Who Saves the Hero - Chapter 22

Tuchanka

All her research on Tuchanka and its history hadn't truly prepared her for the reality of it, Shepard thought to herself as she looked out the windows of the Kodiak at the ash laden winds and bombed out shells of buildings in morbid fascination. The planet's surface literally looked like a video or sim director's vision of a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Unfortunately there was a good reason for that...it was a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Four thousand years ago the krogan had used nuclear weapons on each other and the wounds from their use still showed in horrific detail on the surface of their world: bombardment craters, areas of radioactive rubble, ash storms, salt flats and alkaline seas. A reduced albeto meant that the planet reflected very little of its sun's light from its surface, resulting in an average surface temperature of 72 degrees Celsius, well above habitable range even for the krogan. The Council Demilitarization Enforcement Mission, or CDEM, maintained an atmospheric shroud at L1 Lagrange, lowering the surface temperature underneath to a still hot but habitable 36 degrees Celsius. The fact that the only inhabitable region of the planet was underneath the protective cloud cover meant that all the krogan on the planet were located in that one area, and directly underneath the weapons of the CDEM's orbital battlestations.

Accompanying Shepard in the Kodiak were Grunt, Samara and Garrus, who wanted to see how Wrex was doing. Tali had decided to stay on the ship rather than be amongst so many strange krogan. Besides, the young quarian hadn't really known Wrex very well since she had spent almost all of her time in engineering. Shepard was looking forward to seeing the krogan battlemaster once again. Despite their heated discussion on Virmire over the necessity of destroying the genophage, they had parted as good friends after Saren had been killed. The Illusive Man had told her that Wrex was trying to unite the clans, and Shepard was very interested in finding out how his efforts were going this time.

The shuttle started descending, aiming for the opening hatch of an underground shuttle bay. Shepard knew there were very few inhabited buildings on the surface of the planet due to the solar radiation and the radioactive rubble on the planet's surface. Most krogan lived in underground complexes, and Clan Urdnot's was one of the largest. As she exited the Kodiak, Shepard looked around the shuttle bay curiously. The post-apocalyptic theme carried through to here as well, so much so that Shepard almost expected some dark thematic music to start playing in the background as soon as she stepped onto the cracked concrete of the landing pad. Piles of broken concrete from the crumbling surface were mounded around the outer edge of the landing pad itself, and instead of repairing the broken surface steel grating had been thrown down on top of it.

A krogan with a varren lying on the floor beside him, stood near steps leading down from the landing pad. At the bottom of the steps, three more krogan guarded the entrance into the Urdnot complex from the shuttle bay. Shepard led her small procession past the krogan with the varren, down the steps, and toward the door. As she approached two of the krogan's guarding it drew weapons, and the largest of the three stepped toward her. Shepard halted, squaring her shoulders and staring with slightly narrowed eyes at the large krogan in the middle who seemed to be the trio's leader. With a nod toward one of his two fellow guards the krogan indicated that they should put their weapons away.

He stepped closer, Shepard didn't move, meeting his orange colored eyes with a steady and fearless gaze. She knew well enough to only show strength and calm control here. "The clan leader wants to speak with you," the krogan rumbled in a deep voice. He glanced over a Grunt who had come up beside her, "Keep your rutting pet on a short leash." Shepard's eyes narrowed at that, it did give her a rather unexpected indication of what exactly might be wrong with Grunt, but the pet comment irritated her. "Get him the Rite soon, or put him down."

She took a step toward the krogan, "A krogan is no one's pet, and neither is Grunt," she stated loud enough for anyone in the immediate area to hear. Grunt was of her krannt, letting him be insulted without challenging it was not something she would permit. Plus her instincts were telling her that an insult to any one of her team was actually an insult to both her and her other team members. "He has proven himself beside me in battle against the Eclipse and against the Collectors."

Krogan orange eyes stared into human light grey, neither giving any ground or flinching away. "Mmm," the krogan rumbled after a few seconds, and Shepard could hear the undercurrent of approval in the sound. "Go see the clan leader," the large male said again, waving her toward the door with one hand as he stepped out of the way. They passed through; on the other side of the door was a short hallway and then steps leading further down into the complex.

"Someday we'll get off this rock and show those turian's whose boss," Shepard heard a krogan say as she approached the bottom of the staircase. Her thoughts immediately went with concern to the turian with her, the one who had insisted that he should be fine for a short visit so long as he stayed with the group and didn't wander off on his own.

"Damn right," she heard a second krogan voice agree with the first as she reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped out into another hallway. She looked toward her right, toward where she had heard the voice. Standing at the end of hallway, where it dead ended about fifteen feet away, were two krogan and a varren. "Tear off their scales and let the pyjaks feast on them while their still alive," the one who had just spoke continued. Shepard frowned, disturbed by their conversation and the depth of the hatred she could hear in their tones.

"Hah," the other one agreed with a harsh laugh.

Deciding it was probably better to keep moving before these two took notice of them, or rather the turian with them, Shepard turned toward her left. Garrus stood there, looking past her at the two krogan. Their eyes met and she could see the anger and upset in his, but he didn't say anything. She gave him an encouraging look and then headed up the hallway towards the door at its far end. Past that door was a pile of rubble leading up to where an opening had been blasted through a wall.

On the other side she paused, taking in the cavernous area into which they had just entered. Sunlight shone down through large rents in the ceiling above, letting in hot dusty air. Noise echoed in the space, the sounds of activity and deep voiced conversations. Piles of rubble lay everywhere, the largest, off to her right, was directly underneath the opening in the ceiling and appeared to be made up of pieces of the destroyed roof itself. The top of this particular pile of rubble had been flattened and square slabs laid down to form a floor. Four krogan were up there, two of which appeared to be guards given their positioning near the ramp and their ready weapons. As for the remaining two, one was a large male with a sizable shoulder hump seated on what looked like a stone throne while the remaining krogan paced back and forth in front of him. Wrex, Shepard's eyes widened in recognition as she caught a better look at the seated krogan.

She turned and looked back at her three crewmembers following her. Grunt was looking at everything, the cables hanging haphazardly from the ceiling, the piles of rubble, and the krogan standing by what looked like small cooking fires. Certainly they didn't need them for heat; it was already warm enough in here to activate her armor's internal cooling systems.

The young krogan noticed her watching him, "This is the great krogan home world?" he said to her, his tone conveying his disbelief and disillusionment. Shepard didn't say anything, she hadn't quite been expecting this either. "The land of Kredak, Shiagur, and Veeoll?" Grunt continued. He shook his head, "This chunk of rock is barely worth standing upon. Never thought I'd miss the tank."

Something about this picture disturbed her as well. From what she was seeing, the krogan hadn't bothered to rebuild anything since the end of the Krogan Rebellions. Shepard remembered Wrex telling her that too many krogan left their homeworld, became mercenaries, and never came back because they would rather fight than rebuild their race. Was this another example of the nihilism that had gripped the krogan since the release of the genophage? Was this a sign of an underlying conviction that their world wasn't worth rebuilding since it was doomed anyway? If it was, she hoped that Wrex was making some headway against it. Perhaps in another ten or fifteen years there would be some positive change here and the krogan would start caring enough about their future to start rebuilding their world. Refocusing her attention on the young krogan she advised, "Try not to make final judgments from just this Grunt; we've hardly seen anything of Tuchanka yet," the words were as much a reminder to herself as to him.

He stared at her for a moment and then grunted, "Huh." He looked around again and then nodded. Just behind his bulk, she noticed Samara and Garrus also looking around the area. The turian did not look impressed with what he was seeing at all. As for the justicar, her expression was neutral, even remote as if she had no interest in what she was observing, but her pale blue eyes were intent as they examined her surroundings. Shepard had to wonder what thoughts were going through the asari's mind as she looked upon this. She looked back over at the mound of rubble Wrex sat upon, and shook her head at her own thoughts even as she started towards it.

She was at the base of the ramp before the two guards noticed the their approach, and came to intercept them. "Halt!" one of them commanded with an upraised hand. "You must wait till the clan leader summons you. He is..." the krogan turned his head to look behind him and finished, "in talks."

Shepard thought it looked like her old friend was bored out of his mind by whatever the green-crested krogan pacing in front of him was saying. His jaw rested on one upturned hand as he leaned on the armrest of his stone throne and stared at the other krogan. "You know what tradition demands," the krogan pacing back and forth in front of him declared, "Clan Urdnot must respond. Your reforms will not go unopposed. You risk appearing weak at a critical time."

That comment got Wrex's attention; he leaned forward to glare at the other krogan male, his orange eyes following the pacing form. He glanced over at his guards, and their eyes met. Wrex stood up, "Shepard," he said, and the warm welcome in his tone was clear.

"Good enough?" she remarked to the guard as she stepped around him and started towards Wrex.

He pushed the green-crested krogan who had been talking to him out of his way and strode toward her. When they met, Wrex wrapped her hand with a firm grip, and shook it hard enough that she was thankful for all the upgrades Miranda had put in. "Shepard!" he exclaimed, placing his other hand on her shoulder, "My friend."

She had to blink for a few moments to fight off the feeling that she might tear up; this was the warmest greeting she had gotten from any of her old crew, even Garrus and Tali hadn't made it quite so clear that they were happy she was alive. They stared at each other for a long moment. Shepard didn't think she had ever seen Wrex look this pleased before, and in response to it she felt her own warm smile stretching her lips upward. He finally released her hand. "You look well for dead, Shepard," he observed, "Should have known the void couldn't hold you."

His comment caught her by surprise and she chuckled, "I was really pleased to hear you had come back here to make another attempt at uniting your people Wrex. It seems like helping me destroy Saren and the geth has worked out for you." Feeling confident enough from his greeting to tease him, she continued with a smirk, "Glad we didn't have to kill each other back on Virmire."

"Ha!" Wrex barked out a laugh. "You made the rise of Urdnot possible." He turned and walked towards the center of the platform, passing by the krogan who had been speaking to him earlier as he explained. "Virmire was a turning point for the krogan," he stopped and turned back toward her, "though not everyone was happy about it," he glanced over at the other krogan as he said this. "Destroying Saren's genophage cure freed us from his manipulation. I used that to spur the clans to unify under Urdnot."

"You abandoned many traditions to get your way," the green-crested krogan declared with a dismissive wave of his hand as he came up to stand beside Wrex, "Dangerous." Shepard stared at him, her eyes narrowing, his tone and manner reminded of the turian Councilor. Not a flattering comparison as far as she was concerned.

Wrex turned towards the other krogan and Shepard caught the dangerous glint in her friend's orange colored eyes. In a surprisingly quick move given his size, Wrex slammed his head forcefully into the green-crested krogan's. "Speak when spoken to Uvenk. I'll drag your clan to glory whether it likes it or not," he informed the other krogan, who was still clutching his head in pain. With one last dismissive look at the other krogan, Wrex walked over to his chair and sat down in it. Shepard followed; she couldn't resist smirking just a little as she passed by the other krogan. Uvenk was still rubbing his green crest and looked a little dazed. Wrex had definitely given him a good thwack, but unlike this krogan her friend barely showed the effects.

"Now Shepard," Wrex said, "What brings you here? How's the Normandy?"

Shepard strongly suspected he already knew what had happened to the old Normandy, but she played along anyway. "Destroyed in a Collector surprise attack. I ended up spaced."

"Well, you look good." Her eyes narrowed at his tone, he was up to something. "Ah! The benefits of a redundant nervous system."

Ass, Shepard thought with an amused grin. "Yeah, humans don't have that," she responded dryly.

"Oh it must have been painful, then. But you're standing here and you have a strong new ship." Trust Wrex to point out the essentials, and like hell he hadn't already known what had happened to the Normandy SR1. Shepard had to wonder how much he knew about what she had been doing since she woke up, and how much he knew about the new Normandy. "Takes me back to the old days," Wrex continued. "Us against the unknown, killing it with big guns. Good times." His gaze went to her crewmembers standing behind her. "I see you have some new crewmembers as well as some old ones. Garrus, it's good to see you back by Shepard's side."

"There's no place I'd rather be, besides she needs someone watching her back on a Cerberus ship," Garrus responded sincerely. Shepard turned her head to look at him, their gazes met and she nodded her eyes grateful.

"Huh," Wrex grunted after a moment, "Good to know." They two of them stared at each other for a moment, krogan and turian, and then Garrus nodded to him. Shepard resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the two them. She appreciated the fact that they wanted to protect her, but really she was a big girl and more than capable of taking care of herself. Wrex turned his attention to the asari standing behind Shepard, "An asari Justicar, never thought I'd see one of those in person."

The evident respect in his tone surprised Shepard. Obviously, unlike her, who hadn't heard of the asari order before getting Samara's dossier, her old friend at least knew of their reputation. "Urndot Wrex, Justicar Samara," she introduced the two of them.

The justicar inclined her head in regal greeting, "It is rare that we leave asari space," Samara acknowledged, "but I have sworn myself to Shepard's mission and where she leads I will follow." For some reason, the asari's pronouncement stole Shepard's breath for a second. Perhaps because she had been thinking recently about how lucky she was to have Samara on this mission and helping her with her difficulties relating to the Prothean cipher.

"And this is?" Wrex's voice drew her out of her thoughts. He was staring at Grunt.

"One of the reasons I'm here actually," Shepard admitted, looking over at Grunt. "He has some type of sickness and needs treatment."

Wrex leaned forward in his chair staring intently at the young krogan. Grunt strode forward, past her, and stopped in front of the much older male. "Where are you from, whelp?" Wrex asked him. "Was your clan destroyed before you could learn what was expected of you?"

This was truly starting to sound like Grunt was merely going through a stage that all krogan's went through and not a sickness at all, thought Shepard. She hoped there was some way for Grunt to learn how to keep his aggressions in check or she might be forced to leave him here with Wrex until he learned some control. She couldn't have him terrorizing the rest of the crew and busting up the ship every few days.

"I have no clan," Grunt admitted boldly. "I was tank bred by Warlord Okeer, my line distilled from Kredak, Moro, Shiagur..."

Uvenk, who had been watching all of this from the side chose now to come forward, "You recite warlords, but you are the offspring of a syringe!" he sneered at Grunt dismissively. Shepard shot him an annoyed glare; she was really starting to dislike this guy.

"I am pure krogan," Grunt responded with admirable composure, "you should be in awe."

"Okeer is a very old name. A very hated name," Wrex stated as he rose and stepped down from his throne like chair to stand in front of Grunt

"He is dead," the young krogan responded simply.

"Of course. You're with Shepard," Wrex jerked his head her way. "How could he be alive?" her old friend shrugged as if what he was saying should be self evident.

Wrex's manner pretty much confirmed what Shepard had thought after reading Okeer's dossier. The warlord would have been a constant headache for her, and she suspected she would have likely ended up in a deadly confrontation with him. As interesting as this all was though, Shepard wanted to know what was going on with the krogan she had gotten. "I need Grunt back up to speed, what exactly is wrong with him?"

Wrex glanced over at her. "There's nothing wrong with him," he replied, motioning toward the young krogan standing in front of him with one hand. "He's becoming a full adult."

"Adolescence?" Garrus stared over at Grunt.

Almost at the same moment Samara commented, "Ah, like entering the maiden stage." The asari too looked over at the young krogan, her gaze evaluating. Shepard quietly sighed; the information wasn't really a surprise. She had suspected this was what had Grunt feeling itchy and aggressive ever since that guard stopped her at the landing bay.

Garrus turned back to Shepard and quipped, "Can't we just take him to Omega and buy him a few dances?" Shepard snorted in amusement.

"I don't care what alien's call it, or what they do about it," Wrex stated, waving off Garrus' comment. "Krogan undergo the Rite of Passage."

Something about that set off Uvenk, the next thing Shepard knew the green-crested krogan was furiously striding past her, "Too far Wrex! Your clan may rule, but this thing is not krogan." She watched at the krogan marched off, wondering where he was headed to make his complaint, for it was fairly obvious that was what he was going off to do.

"Idiot," Wrex's comment drew her attention back to her old friend. "So, Grunt? Do you wish to stand with Urdnot?"

Rite of Passage, something to clearly delineate the leaving behind of one societal role, in Grunt's case his youth, and the taking on of another, here his role as an adult krogan. Alliance Marines, just like the marines on Earth, had the Crucible for both enlisted recruits and officer candidates. Seventy-two hours of training exercises where marine recruits demonstrated that they could apply all the skills they had learned in the past seven weeks in the field. Once successfully completed, you were no longer referred to as a recruit. For Alliance Marine officer candidates, the Crucible took place at the end of their first year at the Academy. Shepard still remembered the end of her own Crucible, hearing the Drill Instructor refer to her as a marine for the first time instead of calling her a recruit had been surprisingly important to her. At that point, even if she had failed at the Academy for whatever reason, she would have been able to join the Alliance Marines as an enlisted member.

Noticing the indecisive look on Grunt's face, Shepard asked, "What does this Rite of Passage require?" She wanted to both give the young krogan some time to think without it becoming too obvious he was doing just that and satisfy her curiosity.

Wrex looked at her out of the corner of his eye, "Not for me to say, Shepard," he replied firmly. "The shaman will discuss that."

That sounded like she was stumbling up against krogan tradition. "What happens if he doesn't do this Rite of Passage?" she shifted to her next question.

"If he was left here, he would be killed," Wrex responded frankly. "The clanless are not respected. A tank-bred, probably more so." He turned his attention back to Grunt, "His disposition is what it is, rite or no. That's just him being a krogan. Okeer didn't tell you that in the tank, did he boy?"

Grunt's blue eyes narrowed slightly at that, but Shepard knew it was the truth. Otherwise the young krogan would have understood what was happening to him instead of being confused about it. She focused her attention on her young krogan crewmember, drawing his gaze. "This is his choice," she said, more to him than to Wrex.

Grunt, turned, strode toward the edge of the platform and looked out over the cavernous space watching the krogan around him go about their business. He remained there for several seconds before he turned back toward them. "It is in my blood, it is what I am for," he declared firmly.

"Good boy," Wrex approved. "Speak with the shaman - he's over on the second level." Wrex pointed over to where they needed to go. "Give him a good show and he'll set you on the path." He turned around walked toward his chair. Before he sat down, he turned back to look at her, "You too Shepard. How many times have you stepped in a mess for your crew, hmm?"

She couldn't but smile at that, reminded of how she had helped him hunt for his grandfather's armor. "A few," she acknowledged, watching as he settled into his seat. He had hated the chairs on the Normandy, too thin, too fragile; he seemed to like the wide and very solid stone chair he had now. "I'd like to hear about what you're doing here." She was very curious about his plans for his people, and Uvenk complaining about his reforms had only made her even more curious.

Wrex nodded, "What we talked about back while we were chasing Saren, uniting the clans, focusing on breeding to increase our numbers. We've made a neutral ground where all clans are welcome. Fertile females can be shared among all the clans. We will strengthen the race as a whole." He shifted in his chair and leaned back against the high stone backrest.

While she could understand the practicality of the idea, Shepard had to wonder what the krogan females thought about it. "What do the women of Clan Urdnot think about this plan?"

Wrex chuckled, "It was our female clan leader's idea. The neutral area is safe, and it encourages more female clans to ally with us." Shepard's eyes narrowed slightly at that, it implied that before he had started this the female clans had not been safe. "Attacks on Urdnot now endanger the females of every clan," he continued, "even clans that want me dead will defend Clan Urdnot."

He sounded pleased with that, and Shepard couldn't really blame him. Tactically it was a very good position for his clan to be in, and since it had been the krogan women's idea in the first place she wasn't going to second guess it. "Your females have their own clan structure?" she questioned curiously.

"Nothing is more valuable than a fertile female," Wrex stated seriously. "We know it. They know it. They isolate themselves for their own protection. We work together to set up breeding alliances. I can hardly do anything without Clan Leader Uta's approval," he commented wryly.

"How do you maintain security with so many clans in one place?" Krogans were territorial, with so many different clans in one area it seemed to her that some friction between the different groups was inevitable.

"Any clan willing to send in hostages can come in. No fighting inside the camp. Each clan punishes its own criminals. We stop conflicts before anyone dies. Then we present a simple choice: pay a fine and deal with your problems, or your clan is no longer welcome."

"That doesn't seem very harsh by krogan standards," she commented, surprised.

"Allies from other clans like what I'm doing," Wrex explained. "They help deal with the skeptics. Many are eager for an outlet. Every time I've declared a clan unwelcome, my allies have destroyed them. Word gets around."

Now that sounded like more of what she had expected, and though it was harsh, once again she had to admire the shrewdness with which Wrex had set up this neutral ground and its rules. "What's so important about maintaining individual clans?" she asked curiously, wondering why he was making such an effort to get the smaller clans to ally with him.

"Every clan has different customs," he explained. "Rites of passage, rules of behavior, battle songs, all unique. That diversity makes us great. No clan, not even mine, was meant to survive on its own."

She didn't disagree, but humanities own history showed that his goal might be impossible to obtain. Earth still had distinct cultural differences between different regions, but those differences were much less than they had been fifty years ago and much, much, less than they had been before the advent of global communications a few hundred years earlier. It seemed inevitable to her that the very process of unification would encourage cultural homogeneity, just as it had on Earth. "Urdnot is the leading clan. Doesn't that mean your culture is dominant?"

"For now," he agreed, "but every clan has unique assets. The best tacticians are Urdnot. Jorgal has the longest breeding line. Gatagog holds the oldest settlement. Other's have their own strengths. We keep going how we are, the clans will end up as craters under a nuclear haze. Even Urdnot. We need to rethink. Restart."

That was certainly true. Currently the krogans greatest threat wasn't the battlestations orbiting their planet; it was themselves, just as it had been for over four thousand years. "This sounds ambitious." Shepard was honestly impressed by his plans. "How's it gone so far?"

"Better than I'd feared, worse than I'd hoped," he replied honestly.

Shepard chuckled in response to his comment, and then more seriously she said to him, "It sounded like that krogan who was here, Uvenk, didn't agree with what you're doing."

"Traditionalists like Uvenk are chained varren," Wrex replied dismissively. "Always fighting, guarding their pathetic stick in the ground. When the smoke clears, I can plant a flag on their corpses and rally the rest around a new krogan hub."

So he expected that someday Uvenk would do more than just complain. "You're expecting a lot of bloodshed then, even after you unite," she said soberly.

"It will be slow, but I won't change who we are," Wrex stated firmly. "Krogan are judged by the strength of our enemies. Our worst insult is to say that someone's 'not worth killing'."

Unfortunately that viewpoint summed up most of the krogan race's problem in a nutshell, Shepard thought to herself. If they kept insisting on making the entire galaxy their enemy, eventually they would not survive a confrontation. One step at a time though. Right now they barely got along with each other, and it seemed as if Wrex was trying to change that. Maybe one day the krogan would realize that there was more than one way to be strong, and the strength of one's allies who stood by your side could prove your strength just as well as the enemies that stood against you. She thought that was something Wrex at least understood after their battle against Saren.

"I hope it all works out well for you and your people," she told him sincerely, and he nodded an acknowledgement of her words. It might have seemed like a dismissive response to someone who didn't know him, but Shepard could see that he was pleased. There was one other matter she needed to ask about, Mordin's student. "Besides seeing you again and finding out what was wrong with Grunt, I'm also looking for a salarian. The Blood Pack captured him and brought him here."

Wrex gave her a look that, even with knowing the krogan as well as she did, she found indecipherable. "My scout commander can direct you. He's probably near the perimeter running target practice. Don't take too much of his time. I need a constant watch on the other clans."

Shepard nodded her understanding, even as her mind was racing, wondering if he knew that the salarian in question had worked with Mordin on the genophage update. If he did know, then obviously he wasn't going to say anything about it. She glanced over at where Wrex had indicated they should go for Grunt, "I guess we should go see the shaman before Uvenk has too much of a chance to fill his ears with nonsense."

"Ha," Wrex laughed, "the shaman knows how much attention to pay to Uvenk." She turned to leave. "Watch yourself Shepard," he warned, "Tuchanka isn't safe and homey like Feros or Ilos."

Shepard turned to look back at him, one eyebrow raised at his comment. "I'll keep that in mind," she replied dryly. She turned and passing between Samara and Garrus, started down the ramp of broken concrete toward the opening that led up to where Wrex had indicated the shaman was located.

"Wrex, good luck with everything. If anyone can do this I know you can," she heard Garrus say.

Shepard stopped and turned around, silently upbraiding herself for not considering that of course Garrus would want to talk to Wrex. There had been a lot of friction between them initially, but it had mellowed into respect over time. Drinking in bars together and fighting together had helped speed that process along. Looking back at the platform, she immediately noticed that the two guards looked less than pleased that a turian was talking to their clan leader.

"Who are you and Shepard going up against now Garrus," Wrex asked.

The turian's answer was brief and to the point, "The Collectors."

"Revenge," Wrex said approvingly. "The Collectors are a strong enemy, but I'm sure Shepard will find a way destroy them."

"They're working with the Reapers," Shepard interrupted their conversation, taking a few steps back toward Wrex.

His head swung her way, and his eyes narrowed. "Hmm," he didn't sound pleased. "Then I know you will find a way to destroy them, just like you destroyed Saren."

Shepard nodded, "That's why I need everyone up to speed," she tilted her head meaningfully toward Grunt.

Wrex nodded, "Go see the shaman," he repeated his earlier statement. She nodded back to him, turned and started toward the entryway that led to where he had indicated the shaman was located. "You see that special they had on the extranet?" she heard one krogan say to another as they passed the pair and headed up a flight of stairs.

"That crap rots your brain," his friend responded dismissively, causing Shepard to smirk in amusement at hearing such a familiar statement come out of the mouth of a krogan. "You should be out hunting or fixing something if you can't hunt."

"It was a vid on the Citadel," the first one persisted. "The Citadel Presidium has a big statue of a krogan right in the middle."

The two krogan were behind them now but she could still hear then talking. "Well I'm not putting a damn asari statue up here, if that's what you want." Shepard chucked silently the second krogan's response.

"Don't be a fool. They were honoring our fight against the rachni," the first krogan retorted.

"Maybe they could have honored us by not bombing us with the genophage." The second krogan replied angrily.

Shepard sighed; it always came down to the genophage, and yet she hadn't heard one word about why the turian's had decided to use the bio-weapon on the krogan. One would think from listening to these krogan that the turians had simply woken up one day and decided to release it on a whim. Granted, turian's were too quick to pull out their weapons and start shooting with minimal provocation. The First Contact War was proof enough of that behavior. In this case however, with their brutal attacks against turian colony worlds during the Rebellions, the krogan had given the turians several very good reasons to release the genophage upon them.

Rachni and krogan: two races which by their very natures had difficulty peacefully coexisting with other races, the krogan because they were aggressive and territorial, and the rachni because they could not relate to non-rachni. Two races which had gone to war with the Citadel Races, and only after great difficulty and grievous losses had been defeated. The rachni had been thought to be extinct, wiped out by the krogan during the Rachni Wars. The krogan had been infected with the genophage by the turians and believed that they were doomed to extinction. There the historical similarities between the two races ended, the krogan seemed to have forgotten that it was their own actions in the Krogan Rebellions which had led to the genophage had being unleashed on them. In stark contrast, the rachni seemingly bore no ill will against the other races for letting the krogan wipe them out, even though it had not been of their own free will that they had warred in the first place.

Being here, seeing this planet, listening to these krogan...it lit into stark relief how difficult was the task facing her old friend. Wrex seemed to be one of the few krogan who realized his race needed to change if they wanted to create a more hopeful future for themselves that did not include them being killed off to the last krogan by the other races for starting another war. Certainly being here made Shepard appreciate rachni Queen's choice even more than she had before. The Queen had made the conscious choice to change the very nature of her race. She had given the rachni the ability to relate to non-rachni in the same way they related to each other, all in the hope that it would allow the rachni to someday join the galactic community and avoid a repeat of the Rachni War. It was such a vast, bold and sweeping change for the rachni and it still humbled Shepard whenever she thought about her part in it.

They reached the top of the stairs, as Shepard had suspected Uvenk was complaining to an older looking krogan about Grunt taking his Rite of Passage. "You go beyond yourself Gatatog Uvenk. The rites of Urdnot are dominant," the krogan Uvenk was complaining to growled back. Shepard suspected this was the shaman Wrex had told them to find.

"How do we know it will challenge him? He is unnatural. The beasts of the rite could ignore him like a lump of plastic," Uvenk complained.

"They know blood no matter the womb," the shaman retorted. "Your barking does not help your case." Shepard fought back a smirk, no need to exacerbate the situation just yet.

Her small group came up to the two arguing krogan. "I'll speak for myself," Grunt said, interrupting the staring match between the other two krogan.

The shaman turned away from Uvenk and came over to stand in front of the young krogan. "This is the tank-bred? It is very life like." The older krogan sniffed, "Smells correct as well." The shaman swung his head around to look over at Uvenk, "Your protests ring hollow, Uvenk."

This was not a place for the nicety of words that she would choose to use almost anywhere else Shepard knew, this was a place for bluntness and a certain edge to the way she spoke and acted. "I don't care what his complaints are," she said making absolutely no effort to hide her scorn for the other krogan. "Grunt has the right to be here," she declared firmly.

The shaman's dark gaze met her own; the two of them stared at each other for a moment before the shaman responded to the green-crested krogan. "There's some fire - and from an alien!" He glanced over at Uvenk, "Oh the shame this heaps on those who whine like pups." Shepard felt a surge of satisfaction at the shaman's approval. It gave her more confidence that between her own experiences dealing with sometimes hard headed young marines and her discussions with Wrex, she could handle this.

"If this must stand on ritual then I invoke a denial!" Uvenk protested angrily. "My krantt stands against him! He has no one!"

"Wrong!" Shepard immediately growled back at him. She stared challengingly at the green-crested krogan, "Grunt has already proven himself as one of my krantt. Those who chose to oppose us have all ended the same way...," she paused, narrowed her eyes and gave him a cold, deadly glare, "dead." She turned her head slightly to look over at the shaman, but not taking her attention from Uvenk in case he chose to escalate this to more than just an exchange of strong words. "Grunt will strengthen Clan Urdnot. Name our target and it will die as well."

"Spoken well!" the shaman sounded impressed. "Most aliens," he paused to look over at Uvenk, "and some krogan," he said disgustedly, "do not understand our ways. I believe this human does." The shaman's tone as he said this was an interesting mixture of wonder and approval, as if he had never expected he would make such a statement.

Uvenk's outrage at the shaman's statement was obvious, "Alien's don't know strength!" he protested. "My followers are true krogan. Everything about Grunt is a lie."

In the moment before she acted, Shepard blessed the fact that she had chosen to wear a helmet today, otherwise what she was about to do would hurt a lot more. Rearing back slightly to get some momentum, she slammed her head as hard as she could into Uvenk's greenish crest. Unexpectedly, she felt the tingle of her biotics at the same time giving her head butt extra force and cushioning the impact somewhat for her. She hadn't consciously thought about doing using her biotics, nor used any mnemonic to accomplish it. It was as if her body had known what she wanted from it and simply responded accordingly. Ignoring the fact that she had inadvertently used her biotics for the moment, Shepard watched in satisfaction as Uvenk reeled back from the blow. The krogan shook his head; it was the second time in less than fifteen minutes that he had been thwacked in the same spot, she knew it had to hurt. Her own neck was complaining at her action, but she let none of her discomfort show.

Uvenk looked at her, "You..." surprise evident in his tone before it was replace by anger, "You dare!"

The shaman started laughing, to all appearances uproariously amused by Shepard's action. "I like this human!" he declared loudly. "She understands!"

"I withdraw my denial." Uvenk's words drew her attention back to the green-crested krogan. He glared at her, "This will be decided elsewhere!" It certainly sounded like a threat, and that impression was backed up when the krogan roughly pushed past her, trying to knock her off balance.

"You have provoked them. Reason enough for me to like you," the shaman said to her once Uvenk had left. "They're your problem now."

"Is Uvenk going to be a problem during Grunt's Rite?" she inquired of him.

"He is forbidden to interfere. Will he? During the Rite of Passage, you must be ready for anything, Shepard. From what you've shown me you will not disappoint," the krogan shaman responded.

Shepard nodded. "Do we need any special equipment for this?"

"To begin the Rite, only the candidate and his krantt are required. You love battle, don't you Shepard? The last gasp of a dying opponent?" He just had to say that didn't he... Shepard managed not to grimace at his words, they certainly brought up no good memories for her. "Bring your love of the fight to Grunt's trial," the shaman continued, "and he will succeed."

She nodded, acknowledging that the shaman was at least partially right; she did love the fight, the action, the adrenaline, the challenge and striving against an enemy. That didn't mean however, that she enjoyed killing people because she didn't. After the battle and her adrenaline rush was over, she didn't enjoy looking around at the bleeding and broken bodies of her enemies and knowing that for most of them, somewhere soon a mother was going to receive the news that their child had met with a violent end. She knew the mercenaries she had killed since she woke were murders and criminals, and had willfully chosen to turn their backs on their societies and prey on them instead, but that didn't mean that they were completely evil and it didn't mean that no one would mourn their deaths. Shepard pushed those thoughts away, focusing instead on the krogan in front of her. "So how does this work?" she asked, wanting to get on with Grunt's Rite, this place was depressing her.

"Still you're impatience Shepard," the shaman advised her. "For now, know that Grunt will be tested... and that you must adapt. It is too late in the day today to begin the Rite. Come back to me early tomorrow morning and we will proceed to where the Rite is to take place."

It had taken them awhile to get approval from the CDEM for the Normandy to approach the planet and send a shuttle down. Showing up in a Cerberus marked ship, Spectre aboard or not, had made the entire process a lot more complicated and time consuming than needed. "Alright," she acknowledged, "early tomorrow morning, I'll be back with Grunt." That seemed to be all he expected from her, she turned around intending to head back to the shuttle and eventually a very welcome cool shower. Even with her armor trying to maintain a comfortable temperature, it was definitely hot here.

Garrus and Samara were both staring at her. Her turian friend's incredulity was plainly written upon his face, it was in his eyes and the slightly flared set of his mandibles. The justicar was much harder to read; the only thing Shepard could tell from the asari's composed expression was that, unlike Garrus, the asari wasn't surprised by her actions. Then again, Samara had already witnessed her act somewhat similarly while persuading that one Eclipse mercenary in the Dantius Towers to tell her want she wanted to know. Shepard motioned toward the stairs they had come up. "Humans have an old saying," Shepard said by way of an explanation for her behavior as they headed down the stairs. "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." They passed by the two krogan who had been talking about the krogan statue on the Citadel Presidium and out into the main complex area where Wrex was now talking with another krogan, one Shepard hadn't seen before.

"Well you certainly did a good job of impressing that shaman." Garrus finally commented.

She turned toward him, she was feeling rather pleased with how things had turned out, she hadn't been sure she could strike the right note in her interactions with another krogan besides Wrex and Grunt. Especially on their own homeworld where the one's she would meet would be less influenced by other cultures. Head slamming Uvenk had been a definite bonus, even if he only reminded her of the turian Councilor and wasn't actually Metellus. "That's what I was aiming for," she quipped with a decidedly cheeky grin. Her statement drew a raised brow from Samara, and a bit of a bemused look at how she was behaving.

It took Shepard a moment to realize why the asari was looking at her like that; she wasn't acting quite the way Samara was used to her acting. She was just... Shepard let out an inaudible sigh; she was just starting to feel a bit rebellious about her life. The Council had ignored her warnings about the Reapers and then after her death outright dismissed them. The Systems Alliance had first denied her a promotion because they thought she was now too much of an alien lover for them once she became a Spectre, something they had pressed for in the first place, and then after she died they dragged her name though the muck in their efforts to discredit her warnings about the Reapers. Her girlfriend had turned her dead body over to Cerberus after taking it back from the Shadow Broker who wanted to sell it to the Collectors, and then by the time Cerberus succeeded in bringing her back to life two years later Liara decided she'd rather not be in a relationship with her because she might die again.

She didn't really blame Liara for her choice, but at the same time Amanda was honest enough with herself to admit that, now that the pain of their relationship ending had faded a little, she was beginning to feel a bit angry and sore over the whole thing. Liara had gotten her into this pact with Cerberus by handing her body over to the terrorist group, and then, just when Amanda needed the asari's support the most, Liara decided it was too hard to continue being with her. Leaving her to walk this path the asari had set her upon alone. Amanda's personal and professional lives felt like a bomb had been dropped on both of them and all that was left was twisted and broken remnants. Now she was starting to ask herself if she really wanted to try and rebuild what she had before or do something else. Where did she want her life to go from here?

Shepard grimaced at her thoughts, she shouldn't be thinking about this here. She turned toward her left and the opening that led down to the lower level and the way to the shuttle bay. Before heading off that way she paused and flexed her neck, bending her head back and forth and then more slowly side to side, working out the slight discomfort she still felt from slamming her head into Uvenk's crest.

"Maybe you should leave the head butting to Wrex in the future?" Garrus suggested, noticing what she was doing.

Shrugging off her melancholy mood, she smirked at him, "And let him have all the fun?" The turian shook his head at her, an amused expression on his face. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Samara still studying her, judging from the justicar's slightly concerned expression, unlike Garrus, the asari wasn't convinced by her outward levity. For all she knew, Shepard thought to herself, Samara was able to discern the contradiction between her expression and her actual mood in her aura, the asari was close enough to sense it.

They were in the Kodiak and on their way back to the Normandy when Samara turned toward her and said, "I felt you use your biotics when you confronted Gatatog Uvenk."

That was certainly an interesting way to describe the incident. Shepard nodded, "I didn't intend to," she admitted, "but it certainly made that head slam more impressive than it would have been. I'm glad I was wearing a helmet. Bleeding all over him and myself afterward wouldn't have made nearly the same type of statement," she commented with a grin.

Samara's brow rose, "Undoubtedly," the justicar agreed with regal detachment. "However I was more interested in discovering how you learned to use your biotics in that manner."

Shepard knew what the asari was actually asking. "Not through my Alliance training," she admitted, meeting Samara's pale blue eyes.

The asari nodded, looking as if she had expected that answer. "Perhaps after dinner we could meditate together?" Samara issued the innocuous sounding invitation.

"Sounds good," Shepard replied. After dinner they were going looking for another prothean.

Continued...